Internships and Practitioner Interviews
in Transcendent Practices, Spring 2004

Spring Quarter will mark a number of changes in Transcendent Practices, including a logical evolution of theme, from Flow to Sustenance and Continuity, and to questions regarding the integration of a practice into everyday life and the effects of a lifelong or long-term practice on the individual and his/her community.  We will attempt to address both the questions How does an individual sustain a practice? and How does a practice sustain an individual?  

 The new quarter will also  provide students in Transcendent Practices with the opportunity to pursue a practice of their choice in depth.  The course will be structured to allow maximum flexibility, with Mondays and Thursdays continuing to feature all-program and seminar classes on campus, and the rest of the week essentially unscheduled to allow students to pursue their own course of study.  Students may choose to pursue a discipline that they are already involved in, or they may choose a practice entirely new to them; the only criterion is that it be a practice that they consider (at least potentially) transcendent.

Central to this concept is identification of a discipline or practice, and identification of a practitioner who is willing to serve as a mentor.  It is expected that these (largely local) practitioners, even if they agree to mentor students, will have limited time; some may have time for only limited conversations; some may have more time to lavish on students.
It is important for students to take ownership of this process; faculty may provide suggestions or lists of available internships, but the negotiations with the mentor with regard to time, responsibilities, scheduling, place, frequency, and the depth of the student’s involvement is entirely the responsibility of the interested student.  (Students should be thinking about possible contacts NOW.)

Faculty hope that the majority of students choose to pursue a relationship with a mentor.  Students who do not may choose to study with any of the three faculty in the areas of faculty interest:  yoga, sculpture or poetry (a projected syllabus from each faculty for Spring intensive study is forthcoming.)  All students will be required to attend all-program events, do the Spring Seminar reading assignments, and participate in Seminar classes.  The successful completion of the all-program and Seminar studies will result in an award of 6 credits; the completion of the internship and interview protocols (see below) as well as required meetings and an annotated bibliography (more on this later) will result in the award of an additional 10 credits.

Students will be expected to interview their mentors, and to write up the results, using the format of Will Yoga and Meditation Really Change My Life?  Students unfamiliar with this text are encouraged to study it before joining the program in Spring; continuing students will be familiar with the text and the text’s questions and methods.  Students who choose to study with the current faculty will not be able to use these faculty as interview subjects; they will have two options regarding the interview process.  The first is to hook up with a local practitioner (yogi, sculptor, poet) to complete an interview.  The second will be to do a biographical research project and construct a text-based “interview” with their (faculty approved) subject; faculty distinctly prefer an interview with a current, living practitioner to an interview with one that is dead.

It seems likely that there will be a wide variety of encounters with mentors.  If your chosen mentor has little time to educate/elucidate their practice with you, you may spend more time doing library research about the history of your practice.  Your mentor may ask you to spend the bulk of your time doing errands or sweeping floors.  Whatever requests are made, it’s important that the student view his/her relationship with the mentor as an exchange, where the student is offering her/himself in service in exchange for the mentor’s time and instruction.  A wise student will be as clear as possible in the initial proposal of this exchange to the mentor.  Regardless of the relationship that results, the student must assume the responsibility of using his/her time efficiently to genuinely deepen his/her understanding of the chosen practice.

Needless to say, faculty see this process as an opportunity to encourage students to pursue a personally-chosen course of study, and encourage a focused pursuit of a single discipline.  Through Fall and Winter Quarter, Transcendent Practices has endeavored to have students define for themselves the concepts of Transcendence and Practice.  We’ve discussed the theme of Grounding and the psychology of Flow, the biological basis of mystical experience and the centrality of breath, the ecstatic poetry of 13th century Islam and contemporary America.  We’ve exposed students to practitioners of many disciplines, some overtly spiritual, some decidedly not.  We’ve asked students to experience six months of yoga practice, sculpting, and poetry writing.  With this last, more independent quarter of study, we hope that students will further clarify for themselves the answers to our most fundamental questions:  What is transcendence?  What is a practice?  Are the two concepts related, and if so, how?  

Clarification of requirements for independent study:
Students who do not follow a single faculty member’s syllabus for Spring will be required to submit an Individual Learning Contract; a workshop is currently scheduled for Week 8 this term to clarify the process.  The specific requirements for award of credit for these students will involve, first, completion of all work specified in the student’s contract.  Secondly, completion of all aspects of the Interview process outlined above in paragraph 5.  Thirdly, attendance at a minimum one-hour weekly check-in meeting with faculty sponsor, in whatever forum the faculty deems appropriate.  And, lastly, submission, at the end of the quarter, an annotated bibliography, citing 4-5 sources (minimum) and including a single concise paragraph on each.  These paragraphs should be a “conversation” between  information gleaned from the text about practice or practitioner, and how it relates to what you’ve learned/experienced in your own exploration of that  practice.  Failure to meet these requirements without previous approval by faculty will result in loss of credit.